(HOST) This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving, but it's also the 44th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. While speculation about "what might have been" is intriguing , it's largely futile. But commentator Peter Gilbert recently came across the speech that the President would have given that afternoon and thinks it may reflect important lessons Kennedy learned as president.


(GILBERT) On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was to speak at the new Graduate Research Center in Dallas, but, of course, he never had the chance. Given that setting, his remarks would, appropriately, have dealt with the importance of learning, knowledge, and reason.

Kennedy would have said - quote - "Th[e] link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this nation's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, . . . . America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem."

The speech continued, "[Our nation's] strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions... it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations... it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes." Unquote.

I find these words interesting, especially given that shortly after becoming president, Kennedy had approved the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which, it turned out, was based on ignorance, misinformation, and confusion between rhetoric and reality - precisely what he would have warned us about in Dallas. Nor was the Bay of Pigs about the peaceful settlement of disputes; it was about the violent overthrow of a foreign government.

Perhaps this speech, never given, suggests that President Kennedy had learned from the Bay of Pigs that foreign policy needs to be grounded firmly in reality - that, as president, he should listen to even experts' advice with skepticism. He had followed their advice before the Bay of Pigs - to our detriment; but eighteen months later, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when his advisors argued that attacking Cuba was the only viable option, he wisely rejected that counsel in favor of a blockade.

Idealistic and religious, Kennedy felt that long-term success requires that our actions be not only based in learning, reason, and reality, but that they also be right and just. Had he lived, his speech in Dallas would have concluded with these stirring words:

"We in this country, in this generation, are . . . the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of 'peace on earth, good will toward men.' That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.'"

Peter Gilbert is the executive director of the Vermont Humanities Council.